Big Bikes

Saturday, August 23, 2008

SSWC08 Part Four Kirby Cove “Barbecue”
San Francisco, CA

I have been up since 3AM, I have no idea why. I went to sleep pretty late full of beer and completely spent, this is not right. I know by now that my designs of getting in an afternoon nap are merely a crack pipe dream.

The rollout from Java Hut

Miriam and I spent the night in Fairfax at Pete’s again. We wandered down to the Java Hut (big time meeting spot for Tam rides) in the AM to see off the folks who were tough enough to come out after the mini-epic of the previous day. We had no intention of riding. Of course, this, like all things related to single-speeders went off about an hour late. The plan was originally to do the Pine Mountain loop plus some other stuff including Tamarancho. This was all going to take over four hours. In the end the group just did Tamarancho , they might not have made the Kirby Cove ride being put on by The American Cyclery if they’d done the whole deal.

Carl Decker is a major threat in this race, even if he is going all retro-repack with his Carbon XTC Giant with a Coaster brake (no front brake either) bad ass.

We spent most of the day eating burritos and drinking coffee at Mojo, then went over to American Cyclery to meet up with the peoples. Here we ran into folks from all over, a bunch who I hadn’t seen since Scotland last year. There were the Dirt Church guys, Dave and Rich, Aussie Dave from Cog Cycles, long lost Eric Roman, and all sorts of other folks. Much like the morning ride things didn’t get rolling anywhere near on time, I am going to sue somebody over it, I swear to god. There was a massive concert going on in the park featuring Radiohead so much of the trails were closed off. We made do, ripping around the streets and parts of the park as groups splintered off and reconnected.

"Your one puny little gear is no match for my 21 speed Marin , um...bitch".

Stylin'

We all made it to the other side of the bridge (as far as I know) and bombed down the fire road to Kirby Cove. The alleged barbecue was as Billy reminded us, “49er Style”, i.e.; cold veggie dogs and Kettle Chips. Luckily we were full of burritos and surrounded by people who were prescient enough to have brought beer and magnanimous enough to share it with us.
However this wouldn’t hold us for long, we were driven by hunger back over to bridge for more burritos and beer back at Mojo again.

Dave from The Black Owls, bringing the trouble.

Trouble finds a home.

Wow, three hours of sleep causes words to come out of my brain as easily as a seatpost comes of a Schwinn Voyager which has spent it’s life on Martha’s Vineyard.
I might be able to mange photo captions, yes, “mange” them, that’s what I meant. Aw crap, I am screwed.